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bsheffield: I bet they regret giving that to me now! Good stuff though... I think the writing will be far and away the highlight of this read more

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As it happens, we ran an interview with Wideload founder Alex Seropian on Gamasutra yesterday, covering his upcoming Unreal Engine 3-powered 'political party game' Hail To The Chimp, among other things. So this is perfect timing to be pointing out the E3 Media Summit hand-out given to attendees by publisher Gamecock, which I scanned in over the weekend, and have made available online for the first time. Why? Because it's both bizarrely cute and oddly seditious, as follows:

As can be seen, it's a bit of a USA Today pastiche, and as our own Brandon Sheffield chatted with Seropian in the Gamasutra piece:

"Gamasutra: Is Hail to the Chimp a political statement in any way?
Alex Seropian: Sure. I mean, you're going to read into it what you want. It's all there.
Gamasutra: The monkey guy looks a lot like the caricatures that are drawn of [George] Bush.
Alex Seropian: Any similarities are completely coincidental!"

Looks like Brandon might be on the money, given the following headline and details from the fake news on the E3 handout, titled 'Master debater spanks monkey':

"The first question directed at the candidates concerned their position on global warming and the controversial, yet increasingly accepted, theory holding bovine flatulence as a major contributor. 'You know', began Crackers [the monkey], 'there are things about the environment that we don't understand. I mean, the dinosaurs died off for a reason, right, and now we're here. But was that our fault? You know what I'm talking about.'"

This section includes a political-style survey on 'a scientific survey of hit-and-run drivers' (a big deal if you're a politician who also happens to be an armadillo!), and also discusses a hippo and armadillo team-up, citing a "shared goal of ending monkey hegemony".

Seropian also adds regarding the title: "What we're doing is trying to make a game that can appeal to a huge spectrum of people, both from a gameplay and content perspective. It's something you can pick up right away, but there's also a certain amount of depth so that you can still like it after a year. The content's the same way. There's silly voice-over and stuff, and there's a news ticker, and there's little scenes with debates and interviews that we might understand but the kids might not."

Aha, some more political animal craziness from the hand-out, headlined 'Camel Accuses Airport Security Of Profiling, Calls Hump Search Humiliating': "The new security guidelines in place at airports across the animal kingdom have not been applauded by everyone. Following what he calls 'a gross invasion of my privacy', Steve Assamalam has sued Nile International airport Airport for $7.8 million."

And here's some final feedback from Seropian in the Gamasutra interview: "The reason we picked this theme is certainly influenced by the fact that we think that the sh*t that's going on right now sucks, and it's certainly on our mind. Making fun of that is a healthy thing to do. We're not necessarily trying to make a statement. None of the characters are left or right. You're not going to see a direct parody of the Cheney shooting, but you're going to draw parallels with what's going on in the world right now." This really is a uniquely strange proposition.

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I bet they regret giving that to me now!

Good stuff though... I think the writing will be far and away the highlight of this game.